At 6 am I was at the Cuzco train station to purchase a ticket to Machu Picchu, As usual I came a little too late and the cheap tickets were already used up so I had to go First Class. As usual however it turned out to be a delightful experience sitting next to a very attractive Hungarian woman name Laura who was having a tour of Peru with a group of doctors from Budapest.

At Machu Picchu I opted to hike up the mountain for the full Machu Picchu experience instead of riding the bus and so parted company with the tour group... not however, without a certain pang of regret.

It took an hour to climb from bottom of the river valley to the ruins at the top. The vegetation was very thick and temperature in the 80´s but humid. The trail is like an ancient stair case made of stone-- climbing steeply to the top with many switchbacks. I shed all my clothes except my beard which I wish I could have shaved and my swim shorts. By the time I got to the top there was a fresh breeze and it cooled me off. I found the bathroom facility and changed back into my pants and shirt. By the time I was ready to see the ruins about 2 hours had passed since leaving the valley.

There must have been 200 tourists at the top doing the tourist thing, taking photos and making tourist comments about 'why didn´t the Incas make the steps wider so it was safer?', and such. Mostly they were wide bottomed Americans who grouped up like geese migrating here and there following a swarthy skinned tour guide who filled them with fanciful stories of how it must have been.

As soon as I entered the ruins I became engaged in conversatin with a man named Liam from Hong Kong. He was a business man who had spent about 5 years setting up a horse racing business in Austrailia for his brother. He got mental burn out and so currently was having an extended travel holiday in south America.

Liam and I hiked the ruins together and joked and passed the time. He had an endless number of topics to talk about and I found myself being a ready listener.

While exploring the ruins I ventured out over an overlook to view the incredible scenery and scare my self with the 1000 foot drop to the valley below. I had my Machu Picchu guide book tucked under my arm. As I turned I sort of lost my balance momentarily and my arm did a little involuntary chicken wing flap and the book when sailing down the face of the overhang to a little ledge of loose straw about 10 feet below me.

It was worth $17. That's a lot in travel money terms. It had all kinds of good photos in it and a map of Machu Picchu together with some history. I was quite disappointed.

As I stared at it Liam found a long stick that we might be able to fish it back with. I streched myself as far as I could and still ended up about 2 feet short of touching the book. Liam then found some wire from somewhere and I tied that on the end of the stick and made a hook out of it with my Leatherman pocket knife. With Liam sitting on my feet I pushed myself as far as I dared down towards my book... it was almost readable.

By this time a gaggle of tourists had coagulated nearby and got some photos of Machu Picchu that will never be seen in the National Geographic but probably are more interesting.

I managed to touch it with the wire and flipped a page or two. I inched out a little further, meanwhile discussing with Liam the chances of losing my life by plunging head first down the precipice.

In an inspired moment I flipped the book off the edge-- into outer space, never to cause temptation again.

As we walked the rest of the ruins we found several other places that would have made a good 'book drop' and we laughed out loud about it. It was only $17after all-- and not written that well anyway.